He definitely had something he needed to discuss.
“What’s up?” Fallen asked.
“Mom stopped by tonight.”
“Is she here?” Fallen looked around for any signs of Nora. She thought immediately of Fenn’s watch in her room.
“No. She couldn’t stay, but she mentioned that she’d been clean for a few days and wanted to come back home. I told her I had to talk to you. The guy she was dating told her she has to move out…so, you know—it’s hard. I don’t want to see her on the streets.” Fenn shrugged.
Fallen nodded. “Agreed. But a few days clean is not really very long, you know? We’ve got things working pretty well here, and I’m not about to let her destroy that.”
Fenn crossed his arms. “We can’t just give up on our own mother. Alcoholism is a disease, you know.”
It had to be two in the morning, and she was too worn out and heartsick to have this argument. Nora brought chaos and crisis into a household. Fallen would happily make room for her mother, but Addiction was the one who wanted to move in. Still, she opened her mouth to appease her brother.
“I’ll try to find her after work or on my day off and see what’s going on.”
Fenn finally smiled a little and went upstairs to his room.
Her heart felt like a waterlogged rag doll as she went through the motions of being Fenn’s big sister. Missing Thomas was a spike through her soul. After a quick shower, she made sure all the doors were locked and extinguished the front porch light. Her resolve hardened as she looked out into the night.. How many rock bottoms had it taken before Fallen was able to ban Nora from the house? Nora would always be a challenge for her, but she wasn’t about to give up and allow that chaos back so soon.
Upstairs, she curled in her bed and waited for sleep to take her. Her exhaustion made it a quick transition.
···
On Friday, 8 and 9 helped Fallen with Desta’s floor, and Fallen went to the hospital to check on Desta after work.
When she knocked on the door to her room, Desta called, “Come in!”
She was clearly feeling better. “Great to hear your voice,” Fallen said as she entered. “How’s it going?”
Desta had a vase of flowers by her bed, and her lips weren’t a scary blue anymore.
“Better. Thank you for coming to see me. Did you make it in time yesterday?”
Desta’s eyes were eager. Fallen tossed around the idea of lying just to tell her about Burt some more, but she decided on the truth, because the truth was what she wanted from Desta as well.
She shook her head. “I didn’t make it.”
“I’m sorry,” Desta said. “That’s my fault.”
“Don’t be silly,” Fallen said. “You did everything you could to help me! It will be fine. I’m just glad you’re feeling better. Who are the flowers from?” she asked, trying to steer the conversation to a happier place.
“Lad.” Desta nodded while looking at them.
His name opened a door for Fallen. “That’s nice of him. He seemed very concerned about you. Is he still here?”
She shook her head.
“So, he’s paying for your stay?” It was an invasive question, but Fallen had a hunch. And no more desire to play games. Who knew when Desta might disappear like Ellen and Joe had.
Desta nodded. “He feels like he owes it to me.”
“And why would that be?” Fallen asked innocently.
Desta hemmed and hawed for a few sentences as if seeking a plausible explanation, but when she finally locked eyes with Fallen, she seemed to settle into the actual narrative.
“I raised him, Fallen. I raised him as if he was mine. His parents—they were caught up in the room. And he was just this towheaded little guy playing with his cars. He needed love, and I had so much love to give.”
Fallen nodded.
“You don’t look surprised.” Desta lifted her eyebrow and started to cough.
Her cough was a conversation stopper. Fallen brought her water and tried not to wince when she saw how painful the spasms appeared to be.
The woman needed a moment to recover her breath, and talking seemed like it was asking too much. In the interim Fallen supplied what she knew and explained how she knew it. Desta didn’t look too surprised either.
“I know the hotel is a huge part of your history, and that room gave you your true love,” Fallen said. “But it sounds like Lad was also a love in your life. You’ve done a lot for him.”
Or at least she wanted to believe that was true. She still wondered why Desta had made it seem like she had no real ties to Lad, and why she hadn’t warned her about the room—or about him.
Desta shook her head. “We all do what we can to get by. I saw the room break his parents. You see, they rented that room, and people either got hooked on a love that couldn’t be in real life, or they didn’t dream but would set themselves up to someday be someone else’s dream come true.” Desta coughed again.
A thought hit Fallen like a thunderbolt. “Wait. You mean Burt spent time in the hotel at some point? And because he didn’t have a dream, he became part of your dream?”
Desta nodded while coughing.
“And Thomas? He stayed in the room, too? At some point?”
Desta’s eyes were sad, but she continued to nod.
Fallen refilled her water.
As they waited for Desta’s coughing bout to taper off, Fallen tried to put that new information in her puzzle of a mystery.
Desta picked up her narrative, as if she knew each word was a valuable resource Fallen desperately needed. She told her of the loss of Lad’s parents and her desire to protect him after he’d been orphaned, to keep him away from the room.
“I couldn’t get rid of it it—but I could be there and clean. I kept Lad away from it as much as I could, and once a week I would get Burt. Every day Lad could grow up a little more.”
Desta touched at a tear that was caught on her bottom lashes. “I wanted him to fall in love the real way—in the world outside the hotel. But he’s obsessed with the room, and so angry. After he was old enough to run the business, we had a fight. I’d lost my Burt somehow, so I stopped going in 514 to dream. Lad started putting new girls he’d chosen in there. He’d try to date them, but it never worked out. Then he got married, and I thought he was finally going to go on and live his life, but instead he sent his poor wife in there too. You know how that ended…”
Desta sighed. “He can’t figure out why the room never brings him a love, and I don’t really know either. He doesn’t dream in 514, but he’s stayed in there—against my wishes—so I’ve always thought he might end up in someone else’s dream. You said you see him in yours, but he’s obviously not your match.” She shook her head.
“He’s trying to be,” Fallen said softly. “He’s pursued me there from the very beginning. He acts like we’re a foregone conclusion, like he owns me. He keeps putting an engagement ring on my finger.” She sighed and looked up to find Desta looking horrified and wringing her hands. Fallen covered them with her own, soothing her.
There was so much to comprehend about all of this, but at the end of the tale, Fallen had only this exhausted looking women who had dedicated her life and happiness to a little boy who was frittering away her sacrifice.
“He’s been hurt and angry and alone for so long that I don’t think he truly knows what love means, or what it requires of him.” Desta patted her hand in return.
“And yet you let me go in that room and straight into his sights? Not to mention knowing it might doom me to love a man I couldn’t have? Do you regret that at all?” Fallen hated to grill Desta in her hospital bed, but she had to know.
“I’m a bit of a desperate old lady myself, I guess,” she said. “It’s no excuse, but I didn’t realize how far Lad had gone with things. I just wanted to find my Burt. I knew I had cancer, and you seemed nice—I knew the room would pick you. The love I had with Burt, that you have with Thomas—would you ever give that up? Despite how m
uch it hurts?” Desta looked up pleadingly, her lips more blue than when Fallen had entered
“No. I wouldn’t. It’s a gift and a curse though.” Fallen stood. She needed to get back to the house and get started on Fenn’s dinner.
“All love is.” Desta offered.
She leaned over and gave the woman a kiss on the cheek. She refilled her water and promised to tell 8 and 9 she was doing better.
A gift and a curse.
Chapter 19
Pictures
Fallen woke Saturday morning and called to check on Desta in the hospital. Unfortunately, the woman’s endless coughing forced Fallen to hang up to avoid putting her at unnecessary risk. Maybe she could take a bus to the hospital for a visit after work and her check-in on Adelaide. But she’d have to hurry to make it before the football game. She wished for the millionth time that she had a car.
After a tiring, but uneventful day at work, Fallen walked to Adelaide’s house that afternoon, as had become her daily routine, except the few times Fenn had done it for her, like yesterday. There’d been no more instances of burners on, but Fallen was starting to worry she might have to tell Adelaide’s daughter anyway. Adelaide seemed to be repeating herself with greater frequency.
When Fallen arrived, she found Adelaide waiting, chipper and happy. Everything was as it should be, and she proudly showed Fallen how she’d made lunch in the toaster.
“Great job.” Fallen gave her a careful hug.
The thought that this sweet lady could be hurt made her feel even more guilty. Maybe it was time to email Marquette, even if she didn’t get to keep the job.
Adelaide seemed to have a little project going in the living room with photo albums scattered over the coffee table and couch.
“What are you working on?” Fallen asked as she ran a rag over the clean end table, peeking at the plugs along the wall while she did so.
Adelaide motioned for Fallen to sit on the floral sofa before taking the spot close by. “Dusting off my pictures,” she explained. “Just looking through, remembering. My second husband, God rest his soul, always insisted on going through the pictures and talking about the people in them. He felt like it was good for our memories.”
A look of slight confusion came over Adelaide’s face, and she stopped talking. “Was I making you dinner?” she asked. “I think I was.”
Fallen shook her head. “No, Miss Adelaide, we were looking at your photos.”
Adelaide gave her a blank look before smiling sweetly. Fallen exhaled. This wasn’t going well. It was time to let Marquette know.
Adelaide began to neaten the open photo albums, and a black and white picture fell from one the yellowed plastic pages. It landed upside down under the table, and Fallen had to sink to one knee to retrieve it.
When she turned the photo over, she was glad to be already on her knees because the sight of him in her awake world would have for sure knocked her to the ground.
Thomas.
It was a picture of Thomas.
Fallen felt her eyes fill with tears, and she set down her duster to touch the image with her finger. Maybe she was making sure it wasn’t a mirage.
“He was handsome. Dapper in his uniform.” Adelaide tapped the photo with her slightly bent index finger.
It took a few seconds for Fallen to remember how to turn air into words.
“Who is he?”
“So handsome.” Adelaide gave her another puzzled look. “My second husband, God rest his soul, always insisted on going through the pictures and talking about the people in them. He felt like it was good for our memories.”
She took the picture from Fallen’s hand and tucked it back into the album.
Fallen was too stunned to do anything but watch as Adelaide stacked the albums on the coffee table.
When she stood to fuss over a different task in the kitchen, Fallen unstacked the books and flipped back to the picture of Thomas. With her phone, she took a snapshot of the front and the back of the picture before slipping it back in place.
She did the rest of her chores in a bit of a haze. She wanted to ask more of Adelaide, but her memory didn’t seem to be firing entirely correctly today. She didn’t want to upset her, so after finishing her duties, she slipped out without saying another word about it. Just seeing the photo was almost more than she could absorb anyway.
On her way home, Fallen had to stop and look at the pictures she’d snapped. She cursed her shaky fingers because Thomas’ face was blurry. She flipped to the back of the photograph and studied it a moment. It hit her slowly what she was looking at.
Not his name.
Not his rank as an officer.
It was a birth year. And a death year.
1920-1945
Fallen stumbled when she realized she finally had information on Thomas: how his life was defined. A birthdate and a death date. So much was contained in that brief mathematical description.
How did he die?
At the thought of the word die, a sob escaped her and she sat on the sidewalk.
“No. No. No.”
The details she’d collected about wars crashed over her. WWII had been mostly concluded by 1945. Maybe that date meant something else in this case. Maybe the span of 25 years meant something totally different. Maybe finding her love’s picture with two years on the back with a dash in between was just a different hallmark. Maybe he’d left the service in 1945…
The cold made her get up. Routine made her put one foot in front of another.
Reality set in. She was in love with a dead man.
When she got home, Fallen was grateful for the empty house. She closed the front door quietly behind her.
She clutched her phone in her hand and walked straight to her room, leaving her jacket on and her horrible sneakers in place.
She crawled under the blankets, not bothering to put on a light. She looked at his face—static in the blurry picture; no color, but it was him. Her tears made the picture even more stained.
Fallen wouldn’t find him in her waking world like Ellen had Joe, no matter where she searched. Maybe a gravestone. That’s all she could hope for.
···
An hour later, Fallen dragged herself up because she had to be there for Fenn. He’d set this all up for her. Despite her fatigue and the fact that her brain was swimming in emotions churned up by the photo of Thomas, she put herself together for the event. After a hot shower, she made sure to put her work uniform in the wash.
As planned, Mitchel’s parents picked her up for the drive to Mahopac High School, and she was relieved that Mitchel’s father drove more slowly than he did. However, she parted ways with them soon after arriving when it became clear that Mitchel’s parents planned to highlight their game-watching with pom poms and coordinated cheers.
From a quieter spot a few rows away, Fallen watched for Mr. Orbit—or even Ellen. Luckily, she just got to watch Fenn play, and for a moment here and there, she almost forgot the tragedy that had unfolded in her brain. She wasn’t a font of fabulous football knowledge, but she could tell how wild the crowd went after Fenn completed a play. She even saw a group of girls in the stands with Fenn’s number painted on their cheeks.
Mitchel’s parents were also very complimentary on their way home. Fallen managed to smile, thanked them for the ride, and let herself into the house.
Her soul was a wasteland. Maybe there was sense to be made of this world. Maybe there was some purpose for all this. But Fallen was far from finding the desire to seek it out. She looked at her phone picture until the device ran out of power. She didn’t roll out of bed and plug it in until Fenn came home the next morning.
Over breakfast she listened to him talk about a football boot camp his sponsor had already paid for that would be held during the Thanksgiving break at the end of the month.
After a little while, he seemed to notice how down she was and asked her about it. But Fallen shook off explaining things to him. There was no rational way to describe where sh
e was emotionally and why.
Fallen took a shower instead of talking any more after hearing him mumble about girls and hormones. She stayed in there so long that the water heater ran out of warmth. She dressed in her favorite old sweatshirt and soft jeans with boots that had holes in the bottom. She put black socks on and hoped the raggedy state of her footwear would be less obvious.
After she pulled her hair back, she curled up on her bed again, looking at Thomas. God, she wished she hadn’t flipped the picture over. She would give anything to drain her mind of the knowledge she now had.
Around lunchtime Fenn asked her if she minded him running out to a friend’s house before dinner and the team meeting at his coach’s tonight.
Of course she didn’t. He was busy with the team, and the coach loved to make huge pasta dinners. That affinity was a huge help to Fallen’s food budget.
Not that food mattered anymore. Not that anything mattered.
The only thing Fallen could think to do with herself was see Thomas’ face. Seeing Thomas’ face in pictures would ground her. Give her an anchor. Prove that her feelings were real. She left quickly, once she decided, going to Adelaide’s with the hopes her memory would be better today and they could reminisce over the photo albums again.
···
Adelaide welcomed her as always, but Fallen hadn’t been in the house two minutes before the doorbell rang. Adelaide answered the door with a smile, and without hesitation, while Fallen stood off to the side. The older woman didn’t check to see who was at the door before opening it. Another strike against her independence.
A well-dressed woman embraced Adelaide and seemed slightly surprised before she smiled at Fallen. Adelaide took the woman’s coat, hanging it in the front closet. Fallen held her duster awkwardly before introducing herself.
Marquette Jones, Adelaide’s daughter, greeted Fallen and explained her role as the family’s emissary. Adelaide went to make tea, and Fallen winced as she tried the stove a few times before switching to the microwave to heat up the water.
Marquette lifted an eyebrow at Fallen, who nodded sadly at the unasked question. Yes, the stove was off. And yes, the reason Marquette feared was correct.